Static And Still.

The ghost sits waiting patiently till I am half way

to a paradise of exhausted slumber before it somehow

manages to turn the radio over to medium wave.

The sound of the crisp digital broadcast suddenly lost,

abandoned into the vaporous ether like wisps of smoke

drifting out to sea and drowned out by the sound of Nelson’s drum

beating slowly as it recognises that some part of the country

is about to drown.  Not my part surely as I wake with groggy eyes

puffed up and swollen from the ghostly attack on my right

to die slowly in peace and retune the radio

to a station where a story can be heard and in which

the golden slumber can be afforded more than a listener’s

digest.

 

The ghost, somewhere in the room breathes deeply

against my ear as the sound of static no longer sweeps

across my mind like a razor to the wrist, tearing as it goes.

There is no ghostly echo in the digital clatter and the noise

of communication is left to actress explaining in perceived

annunciation and ready to received plaudits to the Inspector

of the case why she wasn’t at home when the Butler

was found dead, perhaps he did it himself, she offers

as a weak and feeble attempt to discredit

the Butler and divert attention from her self

although she had motive, method and could be very

mean, her red stained lipstick quivering as the ghost

moans that he has heard it all before.

 

The sound of silence is worse, I cannot sleep at all

when that goes on blindly creating a cacophony

of explosive suppression and even the ghost

hates the soft stillness that Hades on a Sunday provides.

To come between the stillness, the static and the smooth

diction and stereophonic sounds

though is a minor miracle, the fourth wall of expectation

denounced as just a dream but where it shouts with purpose

against my head and screams for forgiveness

where forgiveness fears to tread, there the ghost and I

are in agreement, we both shudder at the interjection and turn the

sound up higher on any given channel to drown out the

damned.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015.